From Tragedy to Triumph

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Hello, Gateway.

Are you happy tonight?

Today, let's get on the clap over to his house.

Before I get started on anything, before I say another word, I want to say this first and foremost.

I stand with Israel.

Do you stand with Israel?

Get out of your feet.

Let's stand with Israel.

In the name of Jesus, stand with Israel.

For the Lord God of Abraham, I'm just being Jacob.

We stand with Israel.

Amen.

Woo!

My goodness.

I want the whole world to see that.

I want the whole world to hear that.

We're gateway, folks, in case anybody wants to know.

I love you.

And listen, thanks for letting me sit down.

In 2010, I was in Iraq.

I work for the Department of Defense as a resiliency trainer and comprehensive soldier fitness program and suicide prevention counseling.

So the work I do for the military takes me into strange places.

I jumped off the helicopter I was in, I broke my back.

They broke six vertebrae, and they put in 12 screws and two rods.

I'm an inch taller than I used to be.

I don't know how that happened.

But if you have a short man complex, break your back.

Anyway, so I have to sit down and talk.

Thanks for your patience with that.

Come over here, sir.

I I just want to say thank you, Mike Briskey, for helping.

We have a flag here that is designed for first and foremost the green, thin, green line for our Border Patrol and our U.S.

military.

And I want you to know I thank God for both.

Look at that.

Isn't that beautiful?

Pastor Mike and I talked about me doing it, but he wanted me to hold it higher so you couldn't see my face.

I'm kidding, bad, bad joke.

Uh but listen, we want to show our colors.

We have this in red and blue thin line for our first responders in law enforcement.

Our front line is our military overseas.

Our first line is our first responders in law enforcement.

Our last line of defense, and let me tell you something, it's under attack.

There's our Border Patrol.

And God bless our Border Patrol agents across this great state of Texas and our southern border.

Thank you, Pastor Mike.

I also want you to know that any proceeds, now listen carefully, all proceeds on this go directly to our Border Patrol agent training.

They do not pay for any of my materials.

I cover everything.

They are scholarship to our ranches.

We're training them and giving them a second hope.

In fact, in August, not only are the agents coming, they're bringing mama and all the babies, we're renting all the theaters in the Rio Grande Valley, and we're packing them out with the parents and the moms and the dads of our Border Patrol agents.

No more suicide.

Enough is enough.

We've got to stop the hemorrhaging of suicide among our agents and our military.

Do you agree?

Say amen.

I'm going to tell you something, folks.

We're under attack.

Make no mistake about it.

We're under attack.

And our last line of defense is our Border Patrol.

Pray for them every day.

And then lastly, I want to make a quick mention of a book called SCARD.

It's an autobiography.

And I think you'll find this a fascinating book.

It shows what I do with our military and through the Department of Defense as I train our military worldwide.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Montkara, UAE, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Bosnia, Kosovo, North Africa, South Korea, Okinawa, Japan, and other countries that I don't even know where I am.

And that's a fact.

I have another book, brand new one, called Forged in Fire.

This is a story that I love the subtitle.

It's A Lifetime of Pain Forged a Lifestyle of Resiliency.

And I'm gonna do my best today to make you understand that because I have the mic and I'm on this platform, I'm not one whit, not one I owe it better than anybody sitting in this room.

I want you to understand that the problems I face, you face, we face are perfectly normal.

It is not different for me because I got hurt in Vietnam or I'm a speaker today.

Everybody gets hurt.

That's not the question.

The question is when you get hurt, how are you gonna deal with it?

Don't do this.

What do you mean, God?

Don't do that.

What if he answered you?

I don't know, George.

There's just something about you I don't like, buddy.

Not the God I serve.

Amen.

God does not do evil.

Say it with me.

God does not do evil.

Say it again, I want to hear it.

God does not do evil.

He doesn't even tempt us.

The Bible says, nor can he be tempted.

God is a good God and a God of second chances.

So I want you to know that Forged in Fire is probably the most important book you'll ever buy from us.

And here's why.

We're trying to give the Border Patrol a book for every book sold here today.

I hope you'll go by the table back there.

And then there's the Consuming Fire, which is an addendum to it, written by Peggy Corbin, who is in the audience today.

You all know her.

Give her a great hand.

She's a great author.

Wonderful.

Wonderful lady.

And with her help, we were able to put together this combination of books.

I hope you'll stop by the table.

Please understand, you are helping me help our Border Patrol.

I didn't call them, they called me.

And because they call me, I feel like God put me in there to work with them because I think it's a desperate time for desperate men and women.

Suicide is not the solution.

I know I've been down that road of great darkness and fear of the future.

I actually try to take my life.

It gets dark sometimes.

Some of you know my wife left me for another man.

I know his name, I know where he lives too.

His name is Jesus.

He took her to his place and he did it without my permission.

But I had to get over it, and I did.

And uh I'm glad to tell you that God's the God of second chance.

I met a wonderful lady.

She was a Marine, and uh we got married six months ago, and I'm married to a Gold Star wife.

Actually, before you type, you need to hear this little quick story.

Her husband was a U-2 pilot.

You know, that's that's that plane that flies 70,000 feet and above.

They have to wear a spacesuit.

He was flying one of those airplanes that came apart on a combat mission and lost his life.

But the intel he was able to fire off with high-resolution pictures, save the lives of who knows how many American troops from being killed by an enemy buildup on the border with Pakistan.

God bless our military.

In this room right now is sitting a colonel who is also a doctor in education, Colonel Alan Marshall, and he was a U two pilot in charge of recovery of the body of my wife's late husband.

You talk about a series of events.

He gave her away at the wedding.

Dr.

Marshall, are you in the house?

Would you stand?

Would you welcome one of the truly great American heroes of our time in your congregation?

Where are you?

I'm looking for you, sir.

There you are.

He's one of those few guys that gets high and it's okay.

I love you, Colonel.

You're one of the greatest men I've ever known.

And uh my wife, Beth Ann, was on with me on Daystar a couple days ago.

I want to thank uh Doug and Joni for allowing us to be on there.

She'd never been on TV before.

My hand still hurts, she's squeezing it so hard.

But all that to say, it's good to be in America today.

I'm proud to be in America.

I'm proud of my scars and stripes.

Woo! And some of you have known me a long time.

Pastor Morris and I have been friends for longer than either one of us want to admit.

Way back when he was at Shady Grove or Sady Oak, somebody, where's Jesus?

Shady something.

It was a shady church.

It's a good church.

Really was.

It's probably one of the best church I ever went to.

I loved it.

But uh, Pastor wanted me to tell you how much I am loved by him, and he is loved by we're great partners and friends.

And I want to say thanks to Pastor James and Bridget, and along with Pastor Robert and Debbie for the privilege to be here.

Uh I love you guys.

Y'all know that means I love you in sign language, but my thumb got blown off.

I speak sign language with a lisp.

I'm thumb tied.

Did you get it?

I grew up in this great state of Texas.

I'm going to tell you something, man.

Oh, by the way, I want to mention the fact that on these materials, I take absolutely no, I take zero uh royalties or percentages, none of that.

Everything goes to scholarship to bring our Border Patrol and military to our ranches for healing.

So I wanted you to know that you can use your credit card to buy these things or your neighbor's card.

If you found it, it's a bad joke again.

I'm not good at jokes.

But I do want to tell you that uh whenever I was born into this world, I was born like you with pain.

That birth can now hurt.

That's why we're born screaming.

That's why your mother was born screaming.

That's why your dad was ducking for cover.

Because it we're born in pain.

And uh in my case, my mother had already given birth to two children long before me.

I was the last child born, but almost killed her, and she never did recover.

Some of you may have known my mom uh because I was raised here in the Metroplex from as a teenager.

I was born down in McAllen, Texas, and my dad pastored in Brownsville.

He used to push drugs out of Mexico on a Harley.

Sometimes he pushed the Harley out of Mexico on drugs, too.

And uh he was a he was a reprobate, and he he was stalking a woman who turned right and went up into the steps into a church, followed her in, and first time he heard about Jesus, he was hard to my dad was a drunk looking for a woman and he found Jesus.

And I was born to a preacher instead of an alcoholic.

And uh, so I've never drank much.

My brother-in-law gave me a beer when I was 15.

I took one swallow.

Well, I didn't even swallow, I just got a mouthful.

I guess you could say I drank a beer, but I didn't swallow.

Kind of like kind of like Bill Clinton smoking marijuana, but he didn't inhale.

Oh well, we'll move right along here.

But we were in a barn, my brother in law said, drink it, it'll make a man out of you.

And I took that mouthful, man.

I gagged, I was throwing up, and it's horrible.

But we were in the barn, so I picked up a cow pad and I shoved it right in his face.

He got it in his mouth, and then he spit.

He said, That's why I said, You you gotta you gotta develop a taste for it.

Make a man out of you.

So I I never got into alcohol, never got into drugs.

I was virgin when I got married.

People say, What do you do for fun?

Well, I never had to go through DT or VD or any other STDs.

So I'm a happy camper.

I really am.

I it's not what God got me out of, it's what he kept me from getting into in the first place.

And then I go to Vietnam, I was surrounded by a bunch of perverts.

I mean, it's really crazy.

There were four of us in my team.

One of them called me Dudley Do Wright, another one called me Dr.

Doolittle, another one called me Preacher Man.

I thought that was a compliment.

I called them pervert number one, pervert number two, and pervert number three, and they thought that was a compliment.

Really, it's true.

So my problem wasn't the guys in the bushes shooting at me.

My problem was the guys in the barracks.

Because I fear not the man that could hurt me bodily, but the man that could take out my soul.

I'm gonna tell you something.

You have to fight for what you believe in.

And the most important fight you'll ever fight is not for the with weapons of our warfare being carnal, but they're mighty through God.

And I'm gonna tell you today, I'm not here because I'm a tough guy.

I'm not here because I'm some kind of hero.

Don't confuse heroism with Dave Reaver.

I was in the ninth grade and played one down of football.

It hurt so bad I quit and joined the band and watched other kids get hurt.

That's the hero talking to you today.

So I just want to make sure we got the air clear on all that subject.

And being born to a woman that almost died when I was born, did die because of my birth many years later.

She couldn't even hold me, couldn't feed me.

I was raised by a Mexican nanny from Matamorse, Mexico.

My first fluent language was Spanish.

I was six years old when I had learned English to go to school.

I was six years old when they told me I was not a Mexican.

It blew my Hispanic mind, buddy.

I was not what I thought I was.

And it set a precedent of many more occasions that I would discover I was not the man I thought I was.

Helmetate's very embarrassing, it's very difficult.

I remember years ago I was speaking for a youth convention in uh Illinois, thousands of students there.

And I was the morning speaker and night speaker.

Well, at noon, uh, after lunch, about one o'clock, they had a music concert.

And they said, Amy Grant will be a both placement nuts.

They filled up the front row, fought over, they fought over the front row seats, man.

And then people that weren't even part of that convention snuck in to hear Amy Grant.

And the curtains roll back, da-da-da-da-da-da.

And out comes the director with a cardboard cutout of Amy Grant.

You would not believe the language I heard from those Christian kids.

More F-bombs and salutes with one finger than I ever.

I'm a bird watcher, but I didn't like seeing those birds, I can tell you right now.

It was embarrassing.

The Lord gave me words to say because it's above my pay grade.

I grabbed the mic and stepped up.

I said, Now you know how your friends at school feel.

When you claim to be a Christian, then you behave just like they do.

You're a cardboard cutout of a Christian.

When you discover you're not what you thought you were, when you discover you're not what you wish you were, when you discover you're not what you wanted to be, and pray to God that you nobody would find out what you really are, it's embarrassing.

And if you don't believe me, I ask I'm a Peter.

Jesus said, Before the rooster crows once, you're gonna deny me three times.

And he said, Not me, I'm Peter.

Pete, you need me, you call me Jesus.

1-800 P-E-T-E-R.

I'll be right there.

And the job of a server girl and the crowing of a rooster, you don't get any lower on the food chain than that.

He cursed Jesus to his face.

And when he realized what he'd done, he looked over, there's Jesus standing there.

You ever been talking about somebody?

They walk up on you.

It's a little embarrassing.

He was so humiliated, he wasn't the man he thought he was.

He went over and sat down on the porch, and the Bible says he wept bitter tears, dripping through the fingers of his hands.

He realized he wasn't what he thought he was.

Are you the man?

Are you the moment?

Are you the Christian you think you are?

You wish you were?

Are you the Christian you want people to believe you are?

And under pressure, do you cave?

Are you?

Now I'm not trying to be me, I'm just trying to get you a thing.

Suffering is the greatest tool to discover reality I've ever come across.

And it's the one thing Christians hate the most.

We don't like to suffer.

And it's the one thing many a preacher and foresee, many on television who like to give you the impression if you're sick, it's because God made you sick because you you're a bad boy.

If if God made me, did God shoot me in Vietnam?

Did God do that?

If God did that to me because I sinned, why did he allow Jesus to be crucified?

I thought Jesus paid it all, didn't he?

Answer me, did he pay it all or not?

He paid it all, didn't he?

So why is he gonna take it out?

Now we make ourselves sick.

We can smoke ourselves, eat ourselves, drink ourselves to death.

We can't blame God for that.

It's not God's fault.

So why me, God doesn't hold up in court, does it?

So the rest of the story is we get ourselves into predicaments that sometimes suffering will teach us a lesson.

Here's the one for you.

I was in Crockett, Texas years ago when I got up to speak, and 60 people got up and walked out.

I counted them.

One by one, 60 people got up and walked out.

I hadn't even said a word yet.

Man, I got, man, I was shower.

Why are they leaving?

The last guy got there turned and looked at me and he said, Get the sin out of your life, God take those scars off your face.

Bro, that hurt.

My knees gave way.

The muscles in my legs relaxed so much from the shock of what he said.

I had to hold the podium to keep from falling down.

That's the power of words.

And by the time he got out the door, then I figured out what to say.

I could have killed that guy with the love of Jesus.

How dare you, sucker! But God restrained me, but he taught me a lesson through that moment.

God does not do evil, but God doesn't stop things from happening that we set in motion ourselves.

He has no obligation to.

That we might learn.

Let me give you a scripture from Psalm 119, verse 71.

Psalms 119:71

It's good that I've been afflicted.

That doesn't fly with many a preacher.

It's good that I've been afflicted.

Who wants to be?

I was on TBN one.

Remember TBN?

Remember John Janet Paul?

I was on TBN one night.

I had been on a 90-day tour.

I did not want to be on TV.

I did not want to do a program.

It was Memorial Day many years ago.

And it was on Sunday night when she called.

She said, I need John tomorrow.

I said, I'm too tired.

She said, Dave, I gotta have it.

Sounds like I they just can't exist without me.

Let me tell you, when they call that late, the person they really wanted canceled.

I've been in TV way too long to be suckered by that.

I knew what was going on.

I said, Miss Jan, I'm just too tired.

She talked me into it.

That's the thing about women.

You can't live with them and you can't live with them.

She taught me, I got there, I said, Miss Jan, please don't ask me any hard questions, please.

I'm tired.

Sound like Hillary Clinton during the primaries.

She said, I'll be nice.

The first question she asked, David, do you carry baggage out of that war?

She's not asking about my Samsonite baggage.

She's saying to me, Are you suicidal?

Do you jerk hair rollers out of your wife's hair loading imaginary machine guns?

Are you suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder?

That's what she's asking.

That's not an easy question.

And it made me mad.

Because I knew God didn't do it to me.

I knew God didn't shoot me that day on the riverbank.

I was trying to throw a white phosphorus hand grenade, burns at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

I was serving with U.S.

Navy Special Warfare Command on what's known as a SWIC sailor.

I was on a little river boat that carried SEALs.

We carried SEALs in and out of combat.

I drove the fastest boats in the world with Navy SEALs on board.

I was a brownwater black brake.

Today we're called special boat teams, symbiotically attached to the U.S.

Navy SEALs.

I was attached to SEAL Team 1.

We had the highest killed in action per capita, but you couldn't prove it because if they don't retrieve your body, even though you're dead and went down with a boat, if they don't retrieve your body, you're not KIA, you're MIA missing in action.

I'll never forget that day.

God did not shoot that hand grenade and blow it out of my hand and blow it up beside my face.

He didn't blow 50% of my skin off my body that day.

God didn't do it.

We do to each other what even the devil doesn't know how to do because the Bible says the heart of man's deceitfully wicked above all things.

Who can know it?

We teach the devil stuff he never thought of.

I'm gonna be honest with you folks.

That day in Vietnam, through suffering, I learned more than I could ever learn through having a party.

Jesus learned obedience to the things he suffered.

Now I'm gonna talk about suffering because there's no there's no glory in suffering.

I'm not suggesting we go stand in front of a city bus.

Let it run over so we have a testimony.

I got all the testimony I ever want.

I do, I don't want any more testimony.

I've had it.

I'm tired.

I've been shot up, burned up, mutilated.

One lady said, You are mutilated, sir.

You're mutilated.

She's ugly than me and never had been burned.

Good.

Lord said, What happened to your face?

I said, What happened to your mother?

Whoa, she's ugly.

So my point is, we get hurt in life.

What are we gonna do about it?

And I was on TBN this night, and Jan Cross said, Well, you know why God let you be scarred, maimed, and burned, don't you?

And I'm thinking, no, but this blue-haired wonder is gonna explain it all to me.

And uh, she's the only one I get by with saying that because I really did love her.

We were great friends, we were dearest of friends.

And but I never knew what color.

It's kind of like a traffic light.

I never knew what color her hair would be till I got there.

And uh, so we're laughing about it, but boy, that night she made me angry.

You know why God let you.

I knew he didn't do it, but I didn't know why he didn't stop it from happening.

Now that's a fair question, isn't it?

You've been there, some of you, you know God didn't make you say God didn't kill your grandma, God this, he didn't do that.

But I'm gonna tell you something.

When you're in the midst of battle, the fray is sometimes difficult to be sensible about the way you think.

I knew God didn't do it, but I didn't know why he didn't stop that little 7.62 bullet out of the muzzle of an AK-47.

If he can put the moon in space, why didn't he stop that bullet?

That grenade exploded in full value.

You don't have to have a fuse, you don't have to have a lighter, you don't have to have a trigger.

If air touches white phosphorus, it explodes.

50% of my skin, you know why God let you, and I'm thinking, no.

But this blue-haired runner is going to explain it to me, and she proceeded to do just that.

She said, You know, God didn't hurt you that day, but he didn't stop it from happening because, and that word because became the fulcrum that life or death in words would be passed on to me.

Either she would say something that would give me deliverance.

From the suicide demon that had been on my back for over 20 years, or she would cause me to take the leap.

And I'm gonna tell you, that day was the beginning of a new life.

She said he didn't do it, he didn't stop it because he knew.

Now listen, he knew he could trust you with the scars.

Wow.

That demon never came back.

That was the last time I had to deal with that sucker.

He's gone and gone forever.

And I have had many an occasion that if I was gonna pull the trigger, pull the tube, pull the whatever, I would have done it.

But God set me free from that demon of suicide thought and behavior, and he can do it for you too.

Don't think he can.

So uh anyway, I was on this TV show again on TV, and one day they had a preach-a-thon.

Don't watch preach-a-thons.

They're stupid.

This guy on before me was real cocky.

He's preaching away, and he's bless God, I'll never be sick.

Real cocky.

You can be cocky, but you better be over 50 years old to do it.

He'll never be sick.

I'm sitting over there, I inhale that phosphorus.

It burned those little follicles out to help keep the moisture from building up in your lungs and getting pneumonia.

I cough a lot.

I'm over there wheezing, he's up there saying he'll never be sick.

I muttered it, you already are sick.

I didn't know my lapel mic was on.

Everybody heard it across the network and around the world.

It's time to praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

I caused a split that night.

Let me tell you something, folks.

God does not stop a lot of things from happening in our lives because he wants us to be used for his glory.

Now, listen, what I thought was a condemnation, God was using it as a confirmation.

What I thought was a liability, God was using it as a liberty.

Before you shake your fist in God's face and say, Why me?

You might ask, God, how can you use what I'm going through to help me be a comfort to those that need comfort with the comfort wherewith I've been comforted.

So Paul wrote in, he's writing from a prison cell, not a prayer tower.

He's writing from a prison cell in verse 12 of chapter 1 of Philippians.

The things that happened to me have fallen out rather to the featherance of the gospel.

That's a great sentence.

That's an amazing scripture.

On the bank of the river in Vietnam, I'm holding a white foster hand grenade.

I hold my destiny in my hand and didn't know it.

And I drew back to throw it, and the sniper pulls the trigger.

This whole thing is in destiny.

My destination has never changed.

It's heaven.

It's been that since the day I gave my heart to Christ at 16 years old.

But my destiny, how I go about getting there, has been altered on many occasions.

That day, I held my destiny in my hand and did not know it.

That grenade exploded.

I jumped in the river, my skin was floating all around me.

I was beside myself.

Did you get it?

Oh, come on now.

That's funny right there.

I don't care who you are.

You'll really like this if you like that one.

I needed to.

I'm sorry, I got myself tickled.

I needed to pull myself together.

Oh, that's so sick.

I do not have dame brandage.

That grenade exploded.

I jumped in the water.

I'm swimming across the river.

I crawled up on the bank.

I looked at the damage.

My left thumb was blown off.

They made my thumb out of my hip.

I don't suck my hip.

I'll blow kids' minds with that one.

My right hand was severed in half.

These three fingers and thumb were hanging by tendons.

The only finger left attached was my index finger.

It's the only one that works.

In the military, they give you a percentage for each piece of damage done.

Each finger had a percentile of damage, a percentage of disability.

No thumb, no thumbs, fingers that don't work.

Square inches of scar tissue, eyelids that don't work.

Eyeball you can't see out.

Plastic gear, which I already like.

I don't mind it at all.

They made me a nose.

By the way, it's it's it's a nose.

They made it on top of my head.

Isn't it cute?

It's a boy.

I love it.

I'm so proud of it.

I got a nose, I got eyelids, but I didn't want to mess with my plastic gear.

I'm gonna stick it under this table.

This is what you see about me when I'm gone.

That's part one.

Part two is I was in Jamaica.

I used to travel with Dr.

Bitter Graham for nine years.

I was an associate evangelist.

I spoke for Military and Youth Night at the Great Crusades.

And one night I was in Jamaica, Mun, and I'm preaching 10,000 people, my ear fell off.

I didn't know it fell off.

They're going, I'm checking my fly because a man's got to do what a man's got to do.

I thought something wrong with my fly.

I look around, my ears laying on my shoulder.

I picked it up, dried the sweat off, stuck it back on.

They thought it was a miracle and they all got saved, and that's a true story.

You're sitting there saying, Hey man, how can you laugh about that?

I'm gonna tell you how I can laugh about it.

July the 26th, 1969, yes, teenager right after the war of 1812.

The devil took his best shot.

He lowered the boom and fired and hit me and knocked me halfway into eternity.

But I'm still here because no weapon formed against me.

And prosper!

Raiders take the send me than he that's in the world.

You mean we're more than conquerors through Christ who strengthens us.

So when they when the the when the VA got through adding up all my disabilities, you know what my disability percentage came out to be?

Are you ready?

240% disabled.

Not counting mental.

I'm almost twice and a half knot.

And the Navy said, Oh, you can't be 240% of anything.

You're 100% or nothing.

And I said, Well, 100% what?

They said, You're 100% permanently, totally disabled, and unemployable.

What am I holding?

What's this called?

Microphone.

What's this?

A disabled hand.

What's this?

That's a preaching finger held by a disabled hand that's now a microphone.

Stand, I have a job, I'm employed, I'm a preacher of the gospel.

Don't tell me what I cannot do.

I can do all things through Christ.

Don't let the world label you.

Don't let the world say when the world says don't do it.

When they say you can't, can it?

You can do it.

Don't let the world stop you from your destiny that's appointed to you by God.

Amen.

Let's just give the Lord a clap off anymore.

Wow.

I'm talking faster than I normally do because I don't want to run over time, but I want to get a lot said to you.

I want to close what I want to say to you in a very special way.

After the helicopter picked me up, it's called Dust Off.

Dust off.

For you military people, you know what I'm talking about.

They flew this helicopter and land, they rolled me on the stretcher.

Phosphorus, remember, burns in water?

I was still burning.

I caught the stretcher on fire.

It ripped open.

I fell through on my head.

Have you ever had one of those days?

They rolled me up in wet blankets, got me on another stretcher, away we go, and the medic thinks I'm dead.

He's filling out my death report.

And I think I got to get his attention.

And when the shock wore off and I felt the pain, I said, medic, and he almost jumped out of the helicopter.

That is a true story.

He's thrashing around, papers were flying out, the pilot loss control were dropping like a rock.

I thought, oh Lord, we're gonna crash and I'll be the only survivor.

They got me to Japan on a big hospital jet and put me in a field hospital in the Tokyo area somewhere.

That's where it really gets difficult.

I'm not emotional, I'm allergic to your carpet.

Oh boy, it's and uh it happened last time I was here too.

I want to tell you some some things you think you're ready for.

I was not, I was not the man I thought I was.

I was I I survived the explosion, I survived seeing the damage, I survived the blood squirting out of an open artery, I survived seeing my own heartbeat, I survived seeing my face on my boots, I survived, and then I go to Japan and ask for a mirror, and I cannot survive looking up in that glass.

Because the last thing I said to my little teenage wife, she said, Davey, are you coming back?

I said, I'll be back without a scar.

And I knew when I said it, I made a promise I couldn't keep.

And when I looked up in that mirror with my good eye, I could see what was left.

No human being I'd ever seen.

They don't make monster movies look like that.

If it's covered, it remained with enough granulation to grow back, but it was swollen to the width of my shoulder.

Everything not covered was blown off.

It was charcoal.

No hair, no hair got my hair back even.

I bought it.

There's a bald guy in China.

I hope he's from Wuhan.

Revenge of the wig.

I saw the damage, and I didn't just see burns, I saw scars, and I promised I'd be back without one.

I could not risk them opening a casket.

I could not risk living.

I tried to take my life that day.

I pulled the tube out and I laid my head back and waited.

I had no gun or knife, I just pulled this long tube.

I even folded my hands and I waited to die.

And I got hungry.

Wrong tube.

I pulled lunch.

You can actually die that way, but it's gonna take a while.

And if you smell a pizza, you're saying, plug it in, plug it in.

You don't want to die.

Let me tell you something, folks.

Suicide's not the solution.

I'll laugh my way out of hell, and I'm not gonna do that.

I'm gonna laugh my way through those swinging party gates because the joy of the Lord is mine.

Oh, my the joy of the Lord.

Sit down, you're eating up all my time.

I just want to tell you, uh, I don't wear glasses because I can't see you without them.

I don't want you to see me with them off.

I I well say you can't see me because I my eyes are not pretty.

But if I take them off for this over with, that shows you how comfortable I am to be with you.

And they'll probably come off for them, too.

But I want to tell you that it's uh it's a statement that's not, people don't believe it when I say it, but I mean it.

I'm proud of my scars and stripes for my country.

And people say, you'd do it again, wouldn't you?

I say, that's crazy, man.

I got the hand grenade blew up on my head, and you got the brain damage.

Do it again?

Are you out of your ever-loving mind?

If I knew it hurt this much first time, I wouldn't have done it at all.

But see, we don't know tomorrow, do we?

So probably I would do it again, because as long as we're free, I'll fight to keep us free.

But it's getting to a thin line now between freedom and stupidity that's being hailed in the name of freedom.

I'm gonna tell you what's happening on our college campuses is the way it started under Mao and under Stalin and under these dictators of the past, and when they don't get what they want, they murder the entire society.

God save America.

God help us today.

God send an awakening, a spiritual awakening.

People say America needs revival.

Revival means to live again.

Revive.

Revival means to live again.

You can't live again if you never lived.

We have children in America have never lived.

We have students in college campuses that never lived.

We can't have revival because they never revived.

But we can have a spiritual awakening.

And whatever it takes, I pray God send that spiritual awakening to this great country before it's forever too late.

So to close, they picked me up in Japan and put me on a plane to America.

They said I would die, so they took my last will and testament.

Because when I pull that tube, I got the doctors chewed me out.

Oh man.

I thought doctors were nice.

They made new offices in my body I wasn't born with that day.

Man, they were mad at me because I was trying to kill myself.

They put me on a plane and said, they'll deal with your body on the other end.

So, but I fooled them.

I didn't mean to because I didn't want to live, but I did, in case you hadn't noticed.

And they sent me to Lackland Air Force Base and put me on a helicopter, flew me over to Fort Sam, Brook Army Medical Center, 62 surgeries ago.

And I was in the hospital for 12 months and 13 operations while I was still in the hospital.

But that first day, they put me in the ICU and I didn't know what it was.

I I'd never been in the hospital.

ICU, that's when they put you in this room and they give you a robe that doesn't come together.

It's called the ICU.

I thought they were referring to the Army draft.

Put me in there with 12 others, 13 of us.

We were called the Baker's Dozen.

They thought we had all died, and they didn't want us dying on the main ward.

It discouraged other patients that had a chance to live.

So we got in there and just discouraged each other to death.

I'm the last living one.

Everybody died but me.

And I'll never forget that first day.

They let vishers come in.

A woman went to her husband.

He was in the bed next to mine, took off her wedding ring, threw it on his bed, and she said, You're embarrassing.

I couldn't walk down the street with you.

And she walked out.

I'm looking at the tubes, wondering, which one do I pull?

They're not labeled suicide tube, coffee with cream tube, cheeseburger with fries tube.

You don't know which one to pull.

I don't know which one to I and it was too late.

Now she's standing at the foot of my bed.

And she said, Doc, this is not my husband.

I didn't think you could die twice.

But I felt like, oh God.

She doesn't want me.

She didn't, she wasn't saying she didn't want me.

She just didn't think I was her husband.

She couldn't recognize me.

And Doc said, Mr.

Brenda, that is your husband.

She said, No, it's not.

He stood her up at the head of the bench.

She looked down and looked in my good eye.

Someone said, The eyes are the windows of the soul.

She looked in my eye.

And she saw something she recognized, I guess, in this old burnt house that might have been a stick of furniture she knew was hers.

She said, Doc kisses Davy.

And she bent down and kissed what was left in my face.

I said, baby, I'm sorry.

She said, Why?

I said, I can't ever look good for you again.

She said, Davey, you never were good looking.

Y'all are cold.

Look at you.

We laughed our way out of that room.

But with the last minutes of God, checking my time here, I think I'm down to zero, so I'm gonna close.

But I just want to tell you if I could have written a script, a storybook, a storyline, I could end the way it's ending here tonight with you.

I could not ask for a sweeter audience, a more precious, godly, patriotic, God-fearing, God-loving, country-loving bunch of people than Gateway.

I couldn't ask to serve a better set of pastors than Pastor Robert and Pastor James and their wives.

I couldn't ask for anything more incredible than to spend this evening, this morning, this day with you, and to say to you, I would do it again, I guess, if it ended like this.

And God gave me the sweetest little wife.

She's in a production on Memorial Day, and they're going through all of their rehearsals today.

She couldn't come here to be with you, but she wanted me to greet you.

But I'd like to close with a simple prayer.

Some of you are scarred worse on the inside than I am on the outside.

They've been able to do a lot to help me in 62 operations.

I got three more on the books.

I don't know if I can handle anymore.

I'm pretty much.

I think I'm done.

Not done with preaching.

I'm gonna squeeze another decade out if I can.

I'm 77, but I'm going on 50.

And 50 is a new 30.

If you're in the common core math, I'm 21 and don't you think I can't be it?

I can be.

They don't send me all over the world because I'm good looking, I know that.

They don't send me because of my military strength as to sit down to talk.

They don't send me because of my academic achievements.

I was in the top 10% of the lower one-third of my class.

I majored in math and I found out five out of four people don't even understand fractions.

And if you didn't understand that, you're in my class.

So no regrets.

And if I can somehow finish out strong the way I feel like I started, I will finish this race.

So I'm gonna lead you in a prayer.

I want you to follow me.

I want you to renew your vows.

If you know Christ, renew your vows with me.

If you don't know Christ, make your vows with us.

Let's do this together.

You don't have to bow your head and close your eyes.

Just out loud, say with me, Lord Jesus, I trust you.

You are who you say you are.

You're the Son of the Most High God.

You lived without sin, qualified you for the death you died.

I lived and was born in sin, and I'm qualified by the death you died.

You gave yourself for me, but then you rose from the dead, and you gave yourself to me.

I receive you as my Lord and Savior.

And from this day forward, I will serve you for the rest of my life.

And I'm not gonna sin anymore.

Well, I'm not gonna try, I'm gonna try not to sin anymore.

I'm gonna try not to sin anymore.

But if I do, but I'm not going to, but I'm just saying, if I did, and I'm not making excuses now to sin later.

I'm only saying I'm not gonna sin.

But if I do, I have an advocate with the Father.

I got a lawyer in heaven who's pleading my cause, and I will serve you to the last heartbeat and breath.

So help me, God.

Amen.

Give the Lord a clap offering in his house.

Amen and amen.

Woo.

Thanks for joining us today.

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We hope you have a great week.